You can also browse “Feline Pencil Sketches” for a note card with this sketch as well as other pencil sketches of my cats.

I call pencil “my first and favorite medium”. My mother was a newspaper crossword puzzle fan and I’ve been sketching in pencil since I picked up one of her readily-sharpened No. 2 pencils with the yellow paint and the pink eraser and began to make lines on one of her lined 3″ x 5″ index cards. I actually remember doing this and watching myself make the lines; I have no idea how old I was but I believe I was in kindergarten or first grade. Fast forward a few years and I sat on our dining room table looking out the window at the gnarled crabapple tree in the snow, No. 2 pencil in hand and a piece of blank paper, trying capture the bare tree against the snow, learning the many things a pencil could do.

And from that beginning I often say that “I can speak in pencil”, that what goes in my eyes and comes out the tip of the pencil has very little logical translation much as you would speak fluently in more than one language. I see the scene, and I see the pencil drawing. That’s also one of the reasons you’ll see so many of my daily sketches in pencil, and I have a huge body of works in pencil featuring my cats, commissioned portraits, wildlife, landscapes, waterscapes and flowers.

So when I saw Namir stretching his entire slender self up toward a downward-facing daisy I looked at his crisp gray fur with its muted stripes, his graceful curving figure, the simplicity of the daisies and immediately decided I had to do a pencil sketch entitled “Conversation With a Daisy”.

I had carried in an armload of my Shasta daisies that had been knocked over in a summer storm and put them in the crystal vase on the kitchen cabinet, always a risk in a house of cats who ate nearly all green things but who considered freshly-cut flowers a special treat. One of them had indeed been bent and was facing downward. Seeing Namir I snapped several photographs, but he would not stretch himself out again and sniff that daisy! “I already did that, I don’t have to do it again, cats only sniff things once and then they know all about them,” he said. So much for me, but I know how to get my models into the positions I need, and this one was easy: hold any object above his head in about the position the daisy had been—snap! Sketch.

When I look at scenes like my kitchen it’s when I really mean it when I say, “That’s why we have art.” I can use only what I need of the original scene, and still you see my point of inspiration, plus no one really needs to see my cluttered little kitchen. But it’s not only about being able to leave things out; these choices are part your aesthetic decision about what’s truly important to your statement. In this case, it was Namir’s exploration of the daisy, and briefly I considered leaving out the bunch of daisies and the vase too, but I liked the interaction between his shape and the vase.

Working in pencil I can also express details either with strength, like Namir’s fur, using both texture and opacity for you to understand what I see, or with subtlety, like the barely outlined curve of his cheek and the whisps of his whiskers curving upward toward the daisy in curiosity, just enough quick lines to see the fur on the curve of his chest.

One of the things I enjoy about pencil is the expressiveness of the lines you can make, and this simple drawing makes use of not only a soft pencil lead similar to that old No. 2 but also harder leads that make lighter but cleaner lines, and I’ve also used the point of an extremely sharp pencil, a slightly dulled pencil and the full side of the pencil to create detail and texture, and even combinations of all of these in one simple line as you can see rounding his left whisker pad, above.

I do love flowers, and I don’t give myself enough of a chance to draw and paint them—partly because I’m usually outside tending to them instead. But in this case, along with comparing the two shapes of Namir and the vase, it was another reason to include the vase of daisies in the drawing. As with Namir, I didn’t draw every daisy in the vase or even every petal, in fact they are a little rough and sketchy up close, but overall you get the sense of daisies when you look at them. I looked for the details that stood out most to me, and that was the stems with their tiny leaves, and the positions of the flowers and their petals.

And I also don’t take enough time to sketch just everyday objects, though I study and photograph them all the time. How to work with the complexity of a bunch of daisy stems refracted through the facets of flowers and leaves cut into the crystal vase? Again, look for shadows and light, and recognizable shapes.

I sketched this in 2004 and framed it then. Namir’s idiopathic cystitis began causing issues as his heart murmur increased, and while we never knew if they were related, he began to suffer occasional bladder infections and needed to be hospitalized and catheterized, not from the usual crystals in his urine, but because of swelling, somewhere along the line. My veterinarian and others who treated him guessed that he’d picked up a herpes virus when he’d been an outdoor unneutered kitty at the beginning of his life and it settled somewhere in his urinary tract.

In order to help pay his bill for all the testing and treatment I “raffled” this sketch and a friend won it.

His condition continued on. Because of his heart murmur and developing hypertrophic cardiomyopathy we had to be extra careful of any treatments and of the possible retention of fluid since he was already showing some fluid build up around his heart. In August 2005 he suffered his first round of congestive heart failure and this persistent bladder issue was a huge concern, but after he’d been on a diuretic for a while he would still have infections and urinary issues, but never came near blocking again. Not sure if trading one thing for the other was worth it, but with all that Namir managed to live to be 15 years old with his sense of humor fully intact. No one who met him ever had any idea that his health was so precarious, and for all the really painful treatments he endured, all the veterinarians and technicians at the specialist and emergency hospital welcomed him for a “visit” and I often read in his medical reports how he loved “face scunches” and kisses, and how he sat on someone’s desk and laid all over the papers.

Purchasing prints

SHIPPING

Shipping within the US is included in all the prices listed. All shipping is via Priority Mail. Prints are shipped flat in a rigid envelope. Canvases are shipped in a box to fit with padding. Since this original is small it is also shipped in a box with extra padding.

GICLEE PRINTS

The giclees are printed on acid-free hot press art paper for a smooth matte finish using archival inks. Giclee is the highest quality print available because the technique uses a dozen or more ink ports to capture all the nuances of the original painting, including details of the texture, far more sensitive than any other printing medium. Sometimes my giclees look so much like my originals that even I have a difficult time telling them apart when they are in frames. The giclees have 2″ of white around the outside edges.

I don’t keep giclee prints in stock for most of my works. Usually I have giclees printed as they are ordered unless I have an exhibit where I’ll be selling a particular print so there is a wait of up to two weeks before receipt of your print to allow for time to print and ship.

DIGITAL PRINTS

Digital prints are made on acid-free matte-finish natural white 100# cover using archival digital inks. While digital prints are not the quality of a giclee in capturing every nuance and detail of color, texture and shading, I am still very pleased with the outcome and usually only I as the artist, could tell where detail and color were not as sharp as the original.

The 5″ x 7″ and 8″ x 10″ digital prints are centered on 8.5″ x 11″ digital cover while the 11″ x 14″ has 1″ around the edges because the digital paper is 12″ wide. All are countersigned by me.

CANVAS PRINTS

I usually have at least one of the smaller sizes of canvases on hand, but order larger ones as they are ordered here because customers often want a custom size. Smaller canvases are a 3/4″ in depth, Canvases 12 x 16 and larger are 1-1/2″ in depth. I set them up so the image runs from edge to edge, then the sides are black or white or sometimes I slip in a color that coordinates with the painting. This canvas is black on the sides.

Recent Exhibits

Reviews and Testimonials

Bernadette Kazmarski is my absolute favorite artist, I have one of her pieces on nearly every wall in my home. One of the things I admire most about her work is her feline art. Bernadette is able to capture cats in a very emotional and authentic way. The light and expressions on her feline subjects are so delightful. No animal has captivated us (and the Internet) quite like the house cat. Bernadette's pieces perfectly replicate the joys our feline friends bring to us.

Tara Czekaj

Friends and I chipped in together and hired Bernadette to create a memorial of a friend’s beloved cat after kitty passed away. The memorial was beautiful! We highly recommend Bernadette’s work.

Peg Bowman,Ordained Clergy, Computer Instructor

Bernadette Kazmarski is a friend and talented artist who's an avid cat lover just like us! She has created original cat artwork using a variety of mediums, and has transformed her artwork into such useful giftware items as notepads, garden flags, calendars, greeting cards table decor and votives (one of my personal favorites). She's also an award winning writer. Bernadette is a dedicated cat rescue volunteer and remains active in savings cats' lives.

Carolyn Kozlowski, My Three Cats & Co., Inc.

I love Bernadette's creativity and style. In addition, when I purchase from her, it is from a wonderful, caring person, not a faceless corporation.

Recent Exhibits

Reviews and Testimonials

Bernadette Kazmarski is my absolute favorite artist, I have one of her pieces on nearly every wall in my home. One of the things I admire most about her work is her feline art. Bernadette is able to capture cats in a very emotional and authentic way. The light and expressions on her feline subjects are so delightful. No animal has captivated us (and the Internet) quite like the house cat. Bernadette's pieces perfectly replicate the joys our feline friends bring to us.

Tara Czekaj

Friends and I chipped in together and hired Bernadette to create a memorial of a friend’s beloved cat after kitty passed away. The memorial was beautiful! We highly recommend Bernadette’s work.

Peg Bowman,Ordained Clergy, Computer Instructor

Bernadette Kazmarski is a friend and talented artist who's an avid cat lover just like us! She has created original cat artwork using a variety of mediums, and has transformed her artwork into such useful giftware items as notepads, garden flags, calendars, greeting cards table decor and votives (one of my personal favorites). She's also an award winning writer. Bernadette is a dedicated cat rescue volunteer and remains active in savings cats' lives.

Carolyn Kozlowski, My Three Cats & Co., Inc.

I love Bernadette's creativity and style. In addition, when I purchase from her, it is from a wonderful, caring person, not a faceless corporation.

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This blog is the living update for Portraits of Animals, telling stories, pointing out what’s new, what’s on special and what’s on clearance. Enter your email below to get regular updates in your email inbox when I post something new.

All images used on this site are copyrighted to Bernadette E. Kazmarski unless otherwise noted and may not be used without my written permission. Please ask if you are interested in using one in a print or internet publication. If you are interested in purchasing a print of an image or a product including this image, check to see if I have it available already.